Traveling PALL – Plastic A Lot Less

I´ve just got back from a trip to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. I´m staying in Singapore so it´s relativly close.

I hadn´t been there long, and I was reminded why I´m PALL – Plastic A Lot Less…

River round the corner from where I first stayed

I´ve travelled PALL – Plastic A Lot Less – before, most recently to India. It´s not much different to Being-PALL, it just takes a bit of preparation. Some very simple, some takes a bit more planning. If you´re already started Being-PALL this is pretty much what you´ll be doing anyway, it´s just remembering to take those habits with you. If not, a holiday and being out of your normal routine can be a good place to start.

(please note; I know how flying is bad for the environment, but if you´re going anyway you may as well make a bit less impact.)

Firstly I have my toiletries. These are all things I use at home anyway. Another bonus is they´re solid, so no problem with the liquid carry on at checkout.

Solid shampoo, deodorant from LUSH

(LUSH have so many PALL products. If you´re not near a store or the smell bothers you, shop online)

Then my Klean Kanteen water bottle, which I empty before going through check out and fill again in a bar or restaurant the other side.

Light weight canvas bags and a few paper bags. Which I pack in to my daily bag or rucksack so I´m never without. Just incase I come across tasty things unexpected, no point carrying them all the way there, to then leave in your room!

SteriPEN. This amazing little thing meant I could drink any water while I was in India & I didn´t get ill!! It´s a UV light, simple to use. I found out about it via a blog I follow: Plastic is Rubbish and got mine second hand of ebay.

Cutlery and a drinking mug (not in picture) the drinking mug I used loads in India and would of had to go with out a lot of chai otherwise (that or accept lots of SUP – single use plastic – cups).

Some habits die hard. We were always made packed lunches as kids so this is normal to me. Food on short flights is crap and over priced (as well as packaged in plastic). The food in the airport is also overpriced, though I´m sure can be nice. Still, I hate being ripped of for it so take a packed lunch.

(I hadn´t flown long haul for over 12 years before this year, the food on that is a different story…)

Filling my Klean Kanteen is easy once on the other side.

I understand, that when you arrive on holiday or a trip refusing SUPs might not be the first thing that comes to mind. Unless of course if the first sight you come across are sites like these, which was basically every place in Phnom Penh I went to. It makes it easier to remember when it´s so in your face!

Central market

River round the corner from where I first stayed

River overflow

As always, I refused a straw with every dink I ordered. They remembered every time to not give me one. Even not speaking the same language, I managed to nicely & rather visually..! – get my message across.

Luckily the first place I was staying there was this amazing grocers downstairs. I used my canvas & paper bags. The salad was some of the nicest I´ve had in ages.

Loose veg

Near to the second place I was staying I wasn´t so lucky. This day I was with friends in a supermarket so couldn´t just head out & look elsewhere (which is what I would have done if I was on my own, there were local markets everywhere I would have found something quick).

I actually really wanted and onion and a pepper for my dinner that evening, but as this was all the choice I had I went without and made something different. Sometimes when your Being– PALL – Plastic A Lot Less – you go without, but I survived to tell the tale! Those two trays would have still be on the streets and then the rivers of Phnom Penh forever…

Single wrapped veg

Plastic Pollution was all to obvious in Phnom Penh. Where plastic isn´t moved from site, and instead is piling up, covering the streets & filling the rivers, it´s hard to ignore how much plastic we´re using.

There are many problems in Cambodia, way more than I´ll ever understand, but the amount of plastic pollution, that they as a poor country are paying for, was staggering.

Local street food seller using SUPs. When did they start? How did they do it before?

Common street scene

River round the corner from where I first stayed

Living on the trainline

River overflow

Central market

I wonder, if our rubbish wasn´t being taken away so regularly would we happily use so many single use plastics – SUPs?

It´s easy to criticise other nations, but I meet many westerners who lived and worked in Phnom Penh and used a lot of SUPs. Maybe hoping there is still a magic place called “away”? Who knows, but eventually we could run out of space, this is a reminder of where we live could look like, if someone wasn´t removing it out of sight for us. It´s also a harsh reminder to how much we are consuming and is ending up daily in the oceans…